Santa Cruz, CA to San Francisco, CA

Day 10 - Santa Cruz, CA (continued)

As I was rolling into Santa Cruz, my bike kept misfiring. I thought it was running out of gas, so I switched the petcock to reserve. The bike continued to buck. Was it the spark plugs? It was cold and foggy and I did not want to be stranded on the side of Hwy 101. I treated the bike gently and rode the additional 15 miles to Santa Cruz to my friend Spencer's house. He is a friend of a friend in Austin. All I knew was that he was a winemaker, he lived in Santa Cruz, and he had dinner waiting for me. I walked in the door and I immediately felt at home. His housemates Paul and Eva and his girlfriend Annah were sitting around the table drinking some Zinfandel that Spencer had crafted. I munched on some home-cooked nosh and learned that there were two microbiologists and a ecology postdoc. We chatted at length about carbon buckyballs, aggressive yeast, gay-colored laboratory marking tape, facial cancer of Tasmanian devils, protein folding, and other nerdy indulgences. These were some fine folks.

One of Spencer's yummy creations

The next morning, I met Spencer at the Bargetto Winery and got the full tour. I learned than I could have imagined about the winemaking process, from the incorporation of the flavor of the grape skins, to temperature and pH regulation, to fermentation controls, to oak barrel aging, to bottling/labeling, to microclimates suited to different types of grapes, to alcohol content vs taxation, to migrant worker issues, I got the full scoop. The summer had been cold and wet, so Spencer had yet to begin the 2011 harvest. I was a little dissapointed that I didn't get to smash grapes with my feet. They have big ass machines to do that now anyway. I learned about olallieberries, which are 1/2 blackberry, 1/4 raspberry, and 1/4 Texas dewberry. Bargetto uses them to make a dessert wine. 

Fun with confined spaces

Jolly Spencer with a cap punch down tool

Glycol jacket for fermentation tanks

Spencer and I with some white oak barrels full o' wine

Spencer using fancy descriptive wine words

 Then it was back to business. I put a half quart of oil into the engine. The oil level was curiously low. Oil color: marmot pelt. I changed the plugs, which looked very tired at this point. Then, it was off to San Francisco.

Time for new spark plugs

The road to San Fransisco was incredible. Winding roads through redwoods, along the coast, in and out of fog. I took a spur road, CA State Route 236, and it was the best road yet. 1st and 2nd gear turns through redwoods and very little traffic. On more than a few occasions, slow moving vehicles slowed down and waved me by. They understood the joy of motorcycle riding without being held up for 20 miles behind an RV on a twisty road. The good thing about a motorcycle is that I can sneak by in the same lane or on the double yellow lines. As I passed a slow-moving RV that was painted with flowers and displayed a "HUG GURU" license plate, I was given the hang loose hand sign from the driver's window. Groovy.

Another motorcycle glamor shot along CA State Route 35

 Well, I had a little too much fun playing around in the redwoods. It started to get dark. No problem...except that with dark comes fog and wind, especially in the San Fran bay area. The last 15 miles took as long as the first 60. The road was winding and steep and the fog created visibility of only about 20 feet. Mist and fog is much worse than rain. Rain hits my helmet visor and sheds off. Mist creates a semi-transparent coating that has to be wiped off every 3 seconds. I ended up riding with my visor open and getting a face full of cold and wet for about an hour. It certainly kept me alert. I was surprised by how quickly I entered SF. Being a large world city, I had anticipated it taking an hour to get to my friend's place on Haight St. But all of a sudden, I was there. Luckily, my friend Jeff lives on one of the very few streets having less than an 18% grade.

I was thankful that I did not have to park here.

Motorcycle parking spaces: genius

 I parked the bike right in the middle of Friday night Haight St bar district hysteria around 10 pm. Having been tense from fear of dying by blasting off of a coastal cliff for the past hour and having not spoken in several hours, when Jeff met me, I could not, for the life of me, kick the verbal part of my brain into action. It's like I opened my mouth and alphabet soup fell out of my face and onto the ground. He was able to translate my arm flailing and jerky movements and helped me carry my gear into his swanky flat. I parked my motorcycle in a nifty motorcycle parking space (San Fran, you are a genius) and headed out with Jeff for food and drink. Jeff is great. He is a musician, grammar nazi/English teacher, and professional joker. He has a face that was designed for smiling and it was exactly what I needed after the last hellish hour of riding. He is my everything bagel. We got some yummy Thai food and proceeded to get trashed. Sake and whiskey on Haight Street--what a riot. It was a night of blissful indulgence, beatific bumfuzzlement, and proper introductions to San Fran.

Sake it to me

Day 11-12 - San Francisco

Jeff had to teach English SAT prep all weekend, so I was set free to explore the city. My head was as foggy as the sky that Saturday morning, on account of the boozy night prior, so I sat for about an hour and watched the beautiful flow of people and vehicles from the second story corner window on Haight and Pierce. I saw drama unfold between couples, a skateboarder wipe out and cause a crowd to gather around, a person with a briefcase and a giant frilly pink hat commuting to work on a skate/scooter thing, a rastafarian carrying a parasol and singing (the second rasta-man with a parasol I've seen on this trip...trend?), a team of men moving furniture, about 300 buses, and a gaggle of tourists taking photos of the Haight St sign. I tuned into the pulse of the city. What a wonderful city San Fran is to watch and explore. It is my new favorite. I found a farmers market and was blown away by the quality, variety, and value of the offerings. Berries for $2/pint, beautiful perfect heirloom tomatoes for $2/lb, etc. It put Austin's farmers markets to shame (the cracked, leaky heirloom tomatoes for $7/lb are a joke). It helps to be near a Mediterranean climate, where everything grows well without much input.

San Fran has some of the best farmers markets I've ever seen

The persistent fog lasted about as long as the fog in my brain. I biked across town to the North Beach area, fueled by top notch espresso, and inquired about having a pair of custom-made motorcycle boots made by Al's Attire. I stopped in a deli in Little Italy for a sandwich and more espresso. One of my personal goals for this trip was to wean myself off of caffeine. So much for that.

So. much. espresso...gettin' gooned on the bean

California is interesting - with its flowery irrationality, its lighthearted beauty, and its vanity - all rolled up and tie-dyed. There were warthog, duck, and goat crossing signs along the roads. Instead of the familiar video rental/tanning salon combination stores of the great lakes states I grew up in, California had express sushi/psychic reading combination stores. Hoopty rides blasted Fleetwood Mac instead of gangster rap. California, San Fran in particular, with its fresh air and veggies, intoxicating good smells, and sunny attitudes--was starting to make me soft. I actually bought a lacey pink scarf. This is the first pink thing I have ever bought (except for that pink raincoat I bought in a pinch at REI--I eventually exchanged it....a year later...for a brown one--thanks REI, the gear rental store!). I started walking with a little more Gumby in my step, like shaggy from Scooby Doo. The timbre of my voice was drowning in rose water and I started holding my yeaaaahs and heeeeys. I felt like I was losing my edge. I knew that northern California would afford a more intensely distilled version of this softness. I fancied myself drinking chia seed-laden kombucha, getting fresh olallieberries from the farmers market and doing tai chi in the park. I braced myself and tapped back into my midwestern hard-assedness.
During a bike ride through Golden Gate Park, I stumbled upon the area where the rollerdancing kings and queens of the city strut their stuff. I was downright giddy. I started sweating and breathing a little faster, even though it was 60 degrees. See, rollerdancing is what I envision myself doing when I grow up. I am obsessed with it. And these funky folks were masters of the art. I sat and watched them for about an hour. Check it out.

I checked out the Haight-Ashbury area just for grins. I didn't know what to expect, but I was dissapointed with what I found. Just a bunch of wannabe hippie beggars, trustafarians, people selling "incense" on the street, tourists, and head shops. No more free expression--just t-shirts with free expression slogans screenprinted on them for sale. It was evident: instead of weed being just a catalyst for the creative, it had become the primary focus. The district had become a caricature of itself. I did see a bus that looked like it had ridden right out of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, but nothing original. Oh well. That's postmodernism for ya.  

Grillz

San Francisco was having its improv festival that weekend, so Jeff and I saw a show with Tim Meadows as the headliner, followed by a jaunt in the Mission District for some drinks. The fog that night was intense and creepy. It was Edgar-Allan-Poe-in-a-graveyard-on-Christmas-Eve kind of creepy fog. One can see it descend into the streets like some sort of demon tear gas. But I learned to love it. Jeff and I strolled around in it for hours. San Fran is a good city for chooglin' around town. By Monday morning, after two full days of non-riding, I was anxious to get on the road. After a lazy breakfast with Jeff, I was on the road toward Black Rock City.
Stay tuned to hear about a drunk racist I stayed with in South Lake Tahoe...